Combined studies will no longer be offered as a degree option by the University of Manchester. The course will be phased out, allowing this year’s new undergraduates to complete their final year, but no candidates will be admitted in 2011/12.

The course allowed students to study in two separate and otherwise unrelated academic areas. The first year of the course featured a mandatory volunteering project, where students raised money and awareness for charities in Manchester both nationally and internationally.

Students were not informed about the possibility of the course being withdrawn until the decision was finalised. In the final weeks of the last academic year, students were shown around the potential location for a new combined studies common room, and encouraged to give their feedback.

In July, new and returning students were sent a letter informing them that “following a review of the programme by the Faculty of Humanities[…] Combined Studies will admit its final cohort of first year students in 2010.

An estimated 5,000 students from Manchester’s universities and colleges marched through the city centre last week. Lecturers, parents, and local politicians joined students in bringing Oxford Road to a standstill.

Tom Hurndall, a Manchester Metropolitan University student, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in April 2003. Hurndall was a photographer, and a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organisation that use non-violent protest against the Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.